when gloomy doubts prevail.

Dear refuge of my weary soul,

On Thee, when sorrows rise 

On Thee, when waves of trouble roll,

My fainting hope relies 
To Thee I tell each rising grief,

For Thou alone canst heal 

Thy Word can bring a sweet relief,

For every pain I feel

But oh! When gloomy doubts prevail,

I fear to call Thee mine 

The springs of comfort seem to fail,

And all my hopes decline

Yet gracious God, where shall I flee?

Thou art my only trust 

And still my soul would cleave to Thee 

Though prostrate in the dust

.. it's hymns like these that comfort me so much. Because when I feel things like this and get really nervous about them, 

I'm reminded I'm not alone, at the very least. 

Hymns like this are surely not written in our current time. 

So many songs nowadays make me feel like I have to have a great big smile on my face and be fully confident in Christ to sing them.

I feel like those songs are lying about what the Christian life is actually like. That's why I think hymns like these are important. 

Because they're reality. 

Like this hymn shows us. That Jesus is the dear refuge of our weary souls. The one on whom our fainting hope relies. 

That's right - my FAINTING hope. 

What's amazing is that God invites me in, even with my fainting hope. 

Hast Thou not bid me seek Thy face, 

And shall I seek in vain? 

And can the ear of sovereign grace, 

Be deaf when I complain?

No still the ear of sovereign grace,

Attends the mourner's prayer

Oh may I ever find access,

To breathe my sorrows there

Thy mercy seat is open still,

Here let my soul retreat 

With humble hope attend Thy will,

And wait beneath Thy feet, 

Thy mercy seat is open still,

Here let my soul retreat

With humble hope attend Thy will,

And wait beneath Thy feet

crickets & stitches.

I have stitches in my thumb and crickets are chirping outside of my window. Those seem to be the only things in my mind tonight. My eyes feel heavy. My head feels droopy. My heart feels small. My thumb feels large. I don't feel like making important statements. Just gray ones that don't point in any decided direction. Just ones that say, "well, that'd be all right, I suppose."

Here are some words. I don't know where they came from or what they're doing but they're here.

I have this job. Among other things, I use this terrible hook to take jackets down from about 20 feet off the ground. It's really hard. Most of the time I drop the jackets onto my head. They're usually fuzzy and soft so I don't mind too much but it's always disorienting when it happens. When I'm there, at this job, I only think about the pain in my feet and the
(pause. loud robot noise outside is drowning out the crickets. What IS that? I hate it)
time on the clock. That's not true... I'm making it seem worse than it really is. I usually don't mind it so much. Tonight was different though. As the wind blew into the store through the open doors and knocked down a few hats I felt the cool air pour against my skin and breathed in slowly. "I don't want to work here forever", I thought. "I don't want to live here forever, either." There are more things to see. More people to talk to. I feel a little constricted, like I'm wearing a coat from the child's section zipped all the way up.

The stitches on my thumb look like little spiders straddling my skin and hugging it together. I frequently imagine them running up my arm to hide beneath my sleeve. (I never seem to imagine scary spiders on my thumb. Just kind, cartoon ones that have my good in mind).

Fall is poetry. The leaves change and separate from the branches they once loved. They are either brushed away
(pause again. Scary robot noise has come again)
or if they're lucky, they choose their own direction and float on the gust of their fancy. The temperature becomes more intentional, it seems. It wants you to know it's there all of a sudden. It wants to catch you off guard.

If I could go anywhere right now, I would probably choose Target. For some reason I feel like blending amongst the aisles of cooking supplies and greeting cards.

There are worse things.

I'm sure you think I'm rather strange right now.